Is that all there is?

From the time of his first campaign for governor in 1994, Jeb Bush has talked about limiting the size and scope of state government. In his second inaugural speech, in 2003, he famously mused about emptying out government buildings.

But today, about the only thing empty around Tallahassee seems to be the restaurants around the Capitol after the ban on freebies. No state agency has been abolished during Bush's eight years as governor, although some have been rearranged. Even when functions have been "privatized," the state remains responsible for the cost and oversees the contracts. The state budget in the 2005-06 fiscal year is 43.6% larger than the last budget under his predecessor, Gov. Lawton Chiles, and next year's will be nearly 10% bigger. The only part of the governor's budget that shrank this session was the tax cuts.

So much for the Republican Revolution of 1994, when Newt Gingrich was leading the astounding Republican takeover of Congress and installing himself as Speaker of the U.S. House and when feisty anti-government Bush in Florida nearly blocked the he-coon's re-election. Could Bush in 1994 have imagined that state spending would grow by 50% under his governorship?

Two important things must be said in Bush's favor: First, Bush so far has met his one stated measure for limiting government, which was that spending growth should not exceed growth in Floridians' personal income. We have 43.6% more state spending, 46.5% more personal income (not counting next year).

Second, Bush has done better on this than Chiles, who often talked about "right-sizing" government but whose budget growth of 64.4% outstripped income growth of 57.5%. Chiles' budgets would have grown even more if the Legislature hadn't balked at his tax increases. Bush takes credit for tax cuts totaling $14 billion or more a year, no small potatoes.

So those who muse what state growth would have been like under a Democrat (or a less determined Republican) have an excellent point. You can also factor in the revenue from a booming state economy bolstered by Bush's pro-business policies.

But it's still bigger government. All of Bush's cushion between spending and personal income happened in the 2001-02 fiscal year. The economic relapse following 9/11 produced a 10% cut in state spending while personal income grew 4%. The next year, spending was a tad lower than income. (The numbers come from Florida TaxWatch, the business-oriented private watchdog group.) In the other years, spending outpaced income growth.

So this is it? This is all that small-government advocates can deliver after eight years of an overwhelmingly Republican Legislature and a governor devoted to the cause?

"He has succeeded in shifting the terms of the debate," says Robert McClure, president of the libertarian-leaning James Madison Institute. "Clearly this governor who has big ideas is constrained by the system in which he works."

During a period when Gov. Bob Graham was having trouble getting some proposals through a Legislature controlled by his own party, he was branded "Governor Jell-O." And that was from an editorial board that liked him (the St. Petersburg Times). Today such a governor is simply "constrained by the system." The fact is that Bush hasn't really pushed very hard.

"There's no big revolution," says TaxWatch President and CEO Dominic L. Calabro. "This is a testament that the power of government to grow is overwhelming."

Every function of government has a constituency, which rises up in opposition whenever its piece of government is threatened. Rare is the politician who wants to take that system on. That's why politicians focus on procedural change, like "sunset" legislation and "zero-based budgeting" and a "65% solution for schools" to demonstrate their commitment to tighter budgets. The mindset, whether you're Republican or Democrat, is to prescribe conduct and monitor activities instead of focusing on outcome.

Are we expecting too much? Has Bush done about all that any governor could?

"State government is a huge, huge, huge ship," says Bush's former chief of staff, Denver Stutler Jr., now secretary of transportation. "If you can move that thing a couple of degrees, that's huge success. You move the needle three degrees and travel eight years, and then you look back at the difference you've made."

Bush has consistently kept pressure on spending. But his techniques are more temporary than structural, like suppressing pay raises or deferring the infrastructure needs that accompany all the economic growth he has been encouraging. His Medicaid reform seeks a significant change in that huge program, but after seven years it's a small "pilot" program. State budgeting is mostly add-on budgeting -- last year's money, plus. It still doesn't clearly distinguish investment from cost. Government is not noticeably simpler, nor its effectiveness noticeably higher.

"Real change requires real change," Gingrich, now a presidential prospect, tells his audiences. But it's a career-killer for politicians. Four years after his triumphant rise to speaker, Gingrich was booted out by his own party because his aggressiveness, including a government shutdown in the spending debate, turned voters off and hurt Republicans in the 1998 elections.

The same thing happened to Claude Kirk. Everybody loves to hate Claude Kirk, who was governor 1967-71 (and is now retired, living in Palm Beach County). He was a clown, people say. He didn't keep his word, they say. But Claude Kirk basically created environmentalism as state policy, and he was relentless about it. He didn't have "a program" to buy out rich property owners so they wouldn't develop fragile lands. He had a crusade. Somebody's building a jetport in the Everglades? Shut it down. Dredge and fill developments? No more. Corruption in alcohol licenses? Appoint a division director with integrity and clean it up. Want to break the teachers union? Let 'em strike (they did, in 1968).

Kirk made more mistakes in one term than most governors make in a lifetime, but he was a risk-taker who wanted change and went after it heart and soul. His idea of turning a freighter was to ram it from the side.

Like Gingrich, Kirk got booted after four years. The rocket flamed out. That's the lesson that most politicians remember.

Bush, though no flame-thrower, was ideally suited to break the inertia of government. No governor has been more philosophically consistent on constraining the growth of government than Bush has been. And yet there apparently was either a shortage of ideas -- no clue on what to do or how to go about it -- or a shortage of political courage -- the willingness to take on all the constituencies that rally 'round when any budget item is threatened.

Now the moment has passed. No one in the governor's race now shows the slightest interest in "reinventing government."

Of course, somebody might look around and decide that Florida is quite fortunate in its government. It has a vibrant economy, the highest credit rating and one of the lowest state budgets and state employee counts per capita in the country. It has performed well in crisis and avoided increases in tax rates. Somebody might say that this nice circumstance is a product of a series of pretty good governors, each of whom brought different priorities, good intentions and decent results.

You might say that, but you wouldn't get elected. Nobody wants to either stand up for government or truly recast it. Politicians just talk boldly and carry a small stick.